Gulag

KVCh: Kulturno-Vospitatelnaya Chast, the Cultural-Educational Department of each camp, responsible for the political education of the prisoners, as well as theatrical and musical productions

lagpunkt: the smallest camp division

laogai: Chinese concentration camp

Leningrad/St. Petersburg: the same city. Founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, St. Petersburg briefly became (the more Russified) Petrograd in 1914, when Russia went to war with Germany, and was then renamed Leningrad after Lenin’s death in 1924

makhorka: rough tobacco smoked by Soviet workers and prisoners

maloletki: juvenile prisoners

mamka: female prisoner, the mother of a child born in prison

Memorial: organization founded in the 1980s to count, describe, and assist the victims of Stalin. Now one of the most prominent human rights advocacy groups in Russia, as well as the premier historical research institute

Mensheviks: The non-Leninist wing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party. After the Bolshevik Revolution, the Mensheviks tried to become a legal opposition, but their leaders were sent into exile in 1922. Many were later executed or sent to the Gulag

monashki: religious women, of various faiths. Literally “nuns”

nadziratel: prison or camp guard

naryadshchik: the camp clerk responsible for assigning prisoners to work tasks

NEP: Novaya ékonomicheskaya politika (New Economic Policy)—Soviet economic policy launched in 1921. Briefly brought back petty capitalism (private shops and traders). Lenin viewed it as a “strategic retreat,” and Stalin abolished it altogether

norm: the amount of work a prisoner would be required to do in a single shift

normirovshik: the camp clerk responsible for setting work norms

Novyi Mir: Soviet literary magazine, the first to publish Solzhenitsyn

NTS: Narodno-trudovoi Soyuz, the “people’s worker’s party,” an underground political grouping which opposed Stalin, with branches in the USSR and abroad

obshchaya rabota: literally “general work.” In a camp, usually unskilled physical labor such as cutting trees or digging ditches

osoboe soveshchanie: “special commission.” Committees used to sentence prisoners during periods of mass arrest, from the late 1930s

osobye lagerya: “special camps.” These were set up for especially dangerous political prisoners in 1948

otkazchik: someone who refuses to work

otlichnik: an outstanding worker

OUN: Organizatsiya Ukrainskikh Natsionalistov, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. West Ukrainian partisans who fought against the Red Army during and after the Second World War

parasha: a slop bucket in a prison cell or barracks

pellagra: a disease of starvation

People’s Commissar: head of a government ministry

perestroika: a (failed) program of restructuring the Soviet economy, launched by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s

Politburo: The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In practice, the Politburo was the most important decision-making body in the USSR: the government—the Council of People’s Commissars—had to do its bidding

Pravda: the newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party

pridurok (plural pridurki): a prisoner who is not on “general work,” but has an easier or more specialized job

psikhushka: psychiatric hospital for political dissidents

refusenik: Soviet Jews who had asked to emigrate to Israel, but had been turned down

rezhim: prison regime

samizdat: illegal, underground publications. An ironic pun on “Gosizdat,” the name of the state publishing house

scurvy: a disease of malnutrition, from lack of vitamin C. Among other things, results in night blindness and loss of teeth

sharashka: special prison where imprisoned scientists and technicians carried out secret assignments. Invented by Beria in 1938

SHIZO: from shtrafnoi izolyator, a punishment cell within a camp

SLON: Severnye Lagerya a Osobogo Naznacheniya (Northern Camps of Special Significance). The first camps set up by the political police in the 1920s

Social Revolutionaries: A Russian revolutionary party, founded in 1902, which later split into two groups, Left and Right. Briefly, the Left SRs participated in a coalition government with the Bolsheviks, but later fell out with them. Many of their leaders were later executed or sent to the Gulag Sovnarkom (or Council of People’s Commissars): theoretically the ruling government body, the equivalent of a ministerial cabinet. In practice, subordinate to the Politburo